The Oh-So-Wonderful HONEYMOON!

     I better start back tracking on things I meant to blog about and never did. Since Eric is still asleep and I don't start school for two more days, today is a great day to play catch up.

Eric and I very sleepy
getting ready to leave for HAWAII!
Notice our bride and groom hats :)

Julie and me waiting at the airport!
Both of us heading to different directions
in the world. :) 

     So right after the most amazing wedding I could have ever asked for Eric and I took off for Hawaii! Our plane left really early that morning and there was almost no one at the airport. Almost no one... While I was sitting at the gate with a sleeping husband next to me I realized that one gate over was one of my best friend's Julie. She had flown into San Diego for the wedding and was now leaving one gate away from ours on her way back to Canada. we snapped a picture and talked to each other before our flights took off!

 The plane ride was nice and smooth. We passed the time watching episodes of Castle and sleeping. The flight crew gave me a pretty necklace since it was our honeymoon! When we finally flew over Maui the view was so amazing. I tried to take a good picture but as you can see I got kind of a glare.

    Our Hotel was simply amazing! It was breath taking really. I felt like I was walking into a dream world!
 Everyone there was so nice and kept congratulating us on getting married. It was so fun! We especially liked the lays we kept getting. They were not only beautiful but they smelt amazing too.

As you can see from the pictures, the hotel opened up to the outside and so there were beautiful trees and flowers everywhere! Right outside the rooms was the pool which looked like it came right out of a magazine! and right behind the pool was the ocean! We were so overwhelmed by the beauty of everything.

There were penguins in the hotel too. We thought that was pretty fun. They were in this neat enclosure that we passed by on our way to the pool everyday. Eric loved to stop and make faces at them.    


The hotel staff told us that we still had about three hours to kill once we got there till our room would be ready. So we decided to take off and explore! There was a path right by the ocean that took us to an old whaler's village. It was an amazingly beautiful walk and we enjoyed the time being together.

Path way to Whaler's Village

 When we got to Whaler's village we saw a huge skeleton of a whale! That was pretty neat and it intrigued us so we ventured over to the museum where we learned about the history of the town. We learned all about how there used to be whaling all along Maui and we saw a lot of old captain logs and pictures. It was really interesting and Eric and I learned a lot.

View from our balcony in our room. 

At dinner :)

After touring around the town a bit more and browsing through all the fun shops we headed back to our hotel. We were so excited to see our room and the view from our balcony was simply breathtaking.


That night we walked on the path again back to Whaler's village. The path was so beautiful at night. It was lit perfectly by the moon and torches. We found a cute restaurant and ate a delicious meal. While we ate we listened to a live Hawaiian band play and there were even dancers. It was such a neat night!

View from bus stop
Yes, that is a golf course! 

Eric and I in Lahaina

The next day we decided to go back to Whaler's Village and catch a bus into Lahaina. The bus ride was actually fun and the view was awesome as we rode along the highway right past the ocean.

When we got to Lahaina we were so excited! There was so much to see and we had all day. So we started walking through all the fun stores. We walked into a beautiful art shop and talked with the man behind the counter. He asked if it was our honeymoon and when we said yes he got so excited. He proceeded to tell us that he was an ex-pro surfer and loved to help honeymooners out when it was their first time in Maui. He printed out a map of Maui for us and wrote down great places to eat and beautiful things to see. His advice greatly helped us plan the next few days. That and we called Eric's Aunt Jan. She also gave us great advice and helped us figure out where to go.






We kept going on our exploration of Lahaina. We saw the beautiful old Bayan tree. We were impressed by how large it was!

      We also saw an old fort made out of coral! Well what was left of it anyways!
We had so much fun reading every sign we came to and learning all about Maui!
 We went on a walk by the harbor and saw a fisherman bringing in his catch of Mahi Mahi. I never knew what they looked like before and I realized why they call them the dolphin fish! The look just like little dolphins!

    We decided we needed to get food and our friend from the art shop told us the best place for burgers was a place called cool cats. Eric, always looking for a good burger was sold. So we headed up some stairs to a cute restaurant that looked out over the Banyan tree. We had a coupon for root bear floats and so we enjoyed our floats and burgers! We were not disappointed at all. Eric still claims to this day that it was the best burger he has ever had. I think I have to agree.

 We got on the bus and headed back to our hotel. We decided to walk back to our hotel a longer way which passed by the golf course. Eric enjoyed admiring the course and I loved the beautiful trees. And Eric loved the signs. He stopped and read everyone he found. He claimed it will be his new tradition.








We got to our hotel just in time to watch the sun set from our balcony!

Such a wonderful experience.




We arose the next day and ate breakfast at the hotel. Yes the place does open up to beautiful pond! There were swans the swan around on it and waterfalls all over. It looked like a fairy tale.
Eric fell in love with the pancakes.

After our delicious breakfast Eric and I went for a stroll along the beach! We hid our flip flops in a bush and ran along the soft sand beach barefoot. We chased the waves. Watched little crabs scurry around and climbed on old lava rocks!

 So we decided to rent a car so we could better explore Maui. We set off to explore the lavender fields on the side of Haleakala. The drive there was nothing short of beautiful. But the view from the mountain was simply amazing.

Lavender field on the side of Haleakala

 The Lavender field was divine. I was not sure what to expect when I got there but it became one of our favorite memories. We hiked along the pathways that led through the beautiful gardens.

 We enjoyed each other's company and the beautiful weather. When we were done relaxing in the garden and taking in the wonderful scent of Lavender we stopped and got a lavender scone and lavender lemonade. Which was heavenly!

Waiting for our dinner cruise. 

 Eric and I decided one night to take a dinner cruise out of Lahaina. It was so much fun! The cruise was put on through the Pacific Whale foundation and so all the money went to helping science and animal advocacy.

The food was amazing!  The salads had the best dressing I had ever tasted... it was a Maui Onion flavor. It was great.
They had on the menu specialty drinks that you could order for five dollars. Eric and I decided we would splurge and get some virgin pina coladas. When We asked the waiter for them he laughed when we said we did not drink alcohol. He decided to give them to us for free! Great perk!

The view was simply unbelievable.
As you can see here it was a beautiful day!
 We even saw a rainbow in the sky!

We were on the ocean as the sun started to set. It was a once in a life time type of moment.  It looked so beautiful that it almost did not seem real!

One of our favorite excusions was when we went snorkeling!

We went snorkeling at Molokini! Which was a sunken crater. It was absolutely beautiful.

We even got to see a little octopus which was Eric's favorite!

The view was beautiful but the boat was pretty rocky. Eric and I both got a little sick from the motion of the water!

At the end we even got to see some spinner dolphins. I tried to take pictures but they did not come out very well.













Our favorite day by far was our trip to HANA but that will have to be its own post!

As you can see we had such an amazing time in Maui. It was a wonderful experience and we are so grateful that we got to have such a wonderful time bonding together and building our relationship.